47 pages • 1 hour read
Robert BlochPsycho
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1959A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 5-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary
Norma is missing, leaving Norman to deal with the fallout of her crime. He briefly considers letting the police take her but decides to cover for her. Norman reasons that nothing concrete connects Mary with the Bates Motel. She traveled alone, arrived alone, and indicated that she had happened upon the inn by chance. He cleans the crime scene as thoroughly as he can, reasonably satisfied that there is no evidence left. He finds one of Mary’s earrings but not its mate and assumes the other is still in Mary’s ear. Norman wraps Mary’s body in a tarp, puts it in her car, then drives to a nearby swamp. He pushes it into the swamp, watching until it sinks completely.
Norma is still gone when Norman returns home. He falls asleep and dreams of his mother sinking into the swamp. He thinks of the terrible position Norma put him in by killing Mary, and briefly considers letting her sink. Suddenly, Norman is sinking into the muck. He realizes that Norma killed Mary to protect him and cries to Norma for help. He wakes to Norma at his bedside. She soothes him, and Norman falls into a deep sleep, reassured by his mother’s presence.
Chapter 6 Summary
A week after Mary’s death, Sam Loomis is working late at his hardware store when Lila arrives. She looks so much like Mary that Sam kisses her, not realizing she’s the wrong woman. Lila tells him she has not heard from Mary for a week, so she naturally suspected she came to see Sam. Sam is angry that no one notified him that his fiancée has been missing for a week. Milton Arbogast, a private investigator hired by to investigate the theft, arrives, interrupting the conversation.
Chapter 7 Summary
Arbogast tells them that he traced Mary’s movements to Fairvale, where the trail went cold. He and Lila suspect Sam knows something, but Sam eventually convinces them that he has not heard from Mary in weeks. He has nothing to do with her disappearance or the theft. Sam and Lila agree to give Arbogast 24 hours to follow up on his last lead before they report her missing to the police. Arbogast assures them they will find Mary and leaves. Sam tries to reassure Lila.
Chapter 8 Summary
Sam and Lila spend the next day trying to ease their anxiety. Sam begins to harbor private doubts about Mary, questioning how well he knows her. Arbogast calls to report tracking Mary’s last known whereabouts to the Bates Motel, comparing her handwriting to the fake name she signed on the ledger. Arbogast pressured Norman into confirming that Mary stayed at the Bates Motel last Saturday and ate dinner with him. Arbogast says that he saw Norma sitting in the window at the house and plans to question her. He hears Norman return to the office and hangs up.
Chapter 9 Summary
Norman shaves once a week, on Saturdays. He cannot stand to look in mirrors. His mother once hit him in the head with a silver brush for looking at himself naked in the mirror, and he has been afraid of mirrors ever since. He thinks of Uncle Joe Considine, wishing he could be like him, before remembering that Joe is dead. After shaving, he hides his razor, as he does with all sharp objects, so Norma cannot find it.
Neither Norman nor Norma has brought up the murder. Norman suspects that his mother feels guilty, but he is too nervous about the situation to broach the topic. Few guests stayed at the motel during the week, so Norman did not have to rent out the room where Mary was murdered. He vows to end his voyeurism, which he blames for this predicament, and to act like an adult from now on. He has taken Norma’s keys to the house and motel, reasoning that locking her in her own house is better than a mental health facility.
Arbogast arrives in the afternoon and questions Norman about Mary, getting him to reveal that she was at the motel. When Arbogast asks about the old lady he saw in the window, Norman lets slip that Mary came to the house for supper. Arbogast pressures Norman to agree to let Arbogast talk to Norma. Norman goes to the house to inform his mother ahead of Arbogast. In her room, Norman breaks down, but Norma is calm. She wants to change clothes and prepare to meet Arbogast. Powerless, Norman hears Arbogast knocking at the door. Norma answers the door and kills Arbogast with Norman’s razor.
Chapters 5-9 Analysis
Arbogast’s entrance and the information he supplies force Sam and Lila to confront Mary’s theft, out of character though it seems. Her unexpected criminal activity causes Sam to meditate on The Duality of Human Nature: “[W]e take it for granted that we know all there is to know about another person, just because we see them frequently or because of some strong emotional tie” (82). Sam considers local examples of this phenomenon, concluding, “[O]nce you admitted to yourself that you didn’t really know how another person’s mind operated, then you came up against the ultimate admission—anything was possible” (83). Sam’s ruminating highlights the darkness that can fester beneath the surface of a familiar face or a tight-knit community, unbeknownst to those around them. Lila and Arbogast both suspect Sam of involvement in Mary’s theft, demonstrating the opposite effect: Sam seems like a likely accomplice, but is innocent.
The theme of the duality of human nature closely relates to the novel’s focus on Psychoanalyzing Norman Bates. After Norman covers up Mary’s murder, in a highly symbolic dream, Norman conflates himself with his mother as she sinks into a swamp. Norman “could see her gasping for breath, and it made him gasp too; he felt as if he were choking with her and then...Mother was suddenly standing on firm ground at the edge of the swamp and he was sinking” (62). This glimpse into Norman’s psyche also foreshadows the reveal that he and his mother are one person. Norman has an interest in abnormal psychology, a branch of psychology that deals with mental health disorders and their sources. This interest strongly suggests that Norman knows something about his psychology is atypical.
Norman tends to shut down about Norma: “It was like being two people, really—the child and the adult. Whenever he thought about Mother, he became a child again, with a child’s vocabulary, frames of reference, and emotional reactions” (93). This passage illustrates how Norma uses Shame and Repression to control Norman. Norman has so completely internalized his mother’s chastisements and puritanical worldview that she dominates his thoughts, almost serving as a replacement for his conscience or moral compass. The passage also foreshadows the reveal of Norman’s dissociated personality, which is split between child and adults. The only relief Norman has from his mother comes through the temporary escapes of alcohol and books: “[W]hen he was by himself—not actually by himself, but off in a book—he was a mature individual. Mature enough to understand that he might even be the victim of a mild form of schizophrenia, most likely some form of borderline neurosis” (93). Norman strongly suspects that he has a mental health disorder; however, he cannot get help without exposing his mother to the mental healthcare system, to which he has also a great aversion.
